An Ordinary Day
by Prism01
Summary: The collapse of Los Angeles during the opening hours of infection. Told from various character's perspectives. Very dark and gory.
1. An Ordinary Day

An Ordinary Day

Matthew Shabo sat at the back of his 4th period English class, bored out of his mind. It was an average, ordinary spring day in Reseda, a tiny little city in the San Fernando Valley. Matt stretched his legs out, letting out a silent yawn as he pretended to pay attention to whatever his English teacher was saying.

Like a cool glass of water on a sweltering summer day, the lunch bell rang and Matthew was free for forty minutes. He walked down the hallway and out into the quad, trying hard to avoid bumping into the hundreds of other students as he did. _"These damn overcrowded public schools!", _he thought to himself. Matt headed for his usual lunch hangout, the Metal table. The metal crowd was known throughout the school for their insane partying habits and excessive consumption of drugs.

As Matt approached the table, his friend Damien, a hulking 6'2 half-American, half Norwegian sixteen year old with long brown hair that hung down below his shoulders seemed to approach out of nowhere and grabbed Matt by the side and held a pen to his gut, driving it in as if it were a real knife. "Only those who serve Lucifer may enter.", Damien growled.

Matt was your average sixteen year old boy, not much compared to Damien but no small fry either, but he was shorter than Damien by about four inches. Damien was tall, with wide shoulders and a muscular upper body. Matt was strong, but he was shorter than Damien, and his upper body was tight and unevenly toned.

Matt was used to this kind of treatment by Damien. They had been friends since fourth grade and Damien was a little arrogant due to his size, but he still liked him nonetheless and Matt just learned how accept that kind of treatment from him. Matt hit Damien in the side and yelled "I obey!" loudly. Damien let go and another person, a skinny Mexican with a shaved head stepped out of his the secluded hangout near the lockers wearing a white T-shirt, gangster locs and a pair of Dickies pants. "It is easy to say you obey, but do you really?", said Angel.

Smiling, Matt played along. "I obey!", he said, raising a voice a bit.

A short blonde white girl of about 5'4 wearing a pair of pair of Dickies pants and an AC/DC baby T ran up behind Matt and placed both her hands over his eyes.

"I hope that's Laurel who's touching me.", Matt laughed.

Laurel remained on point and spoke to Matt angrily.

"Your soul belongs to Lucifer."

"My soul belongs to Lucifer", Matt repeated.

"Your body belongs to the cause."

"My body belongs to the cause."

Laurel could take it no longer. She squealed loudly and dropped her hands to squeeze Matt's ass. She screeched and exclaimed loudly, "BUT YOUR ASS BELONGS TO ME!"

Laurel let go of Matt and sat down again, giggling as she did.

Everyone started laughing and the façade of being territorial and aggressive faded away and was replaced by feelings of camaderie and adventure. Everyone became what they were, a bunch of stoner kids.

Angel walked up to Matt and slapped him on the back. "Hey wassup man, you wanna ditch and go pick up an O?"

Matt shrugged and spoke. "Sure, I have nothing better to do. Can Damien come with?"

"Sure." Angel said.

Matt, Angel and Damien turned to the rest of the group; Alex, Nick, Patrick and some other assorted people. "Alright, I guess we're gone then. Call us if you need us.", Angel said. The group muttered goodbyes and handshakes, and the trio walked out of school and into the parking lot through a side gate. They headed to Angel's car, a restored 1971 Ford Galaxie muscle car. Angel opened the door and sat down in the driver's seat. Matt and Damien climbed into the back, resting on the soft plush seats. Angel put a key into the ignition and started it up, driving out of the parking lot of Reseda High and into the city.

Damien looked below him. Next to his feet were a carton of Marlboro Reds, his favorite brand of cigarettes. He broke the silence and spoke. "Ange, can I bum a stog?", he asked. "Me too.", said Matt.

Angel stopped at a red light. "Yeah man, pass me up one too."

Damien passed out cigarettes to everyone and pulled out a lighter, lighting his, Matt's and Angel's. Smoke filled the car, drifting all over the oversized interior. Matt cleared his throat and spoke, moving his lips slowly as to not lose the cigarette from between his lips. "So where are we headed to?"

Angel released the brake as the light turned green and he continued down the road, approaching Reseda and Victory. "We're gonna meet a foo' named Kris. He gave me the hookup. One O of Canada bud for $150. But keep that shit on the low pro cause he doesn't want people to know he has so much herb."

"Yeah I know what your sayin'.", said Damien.

"When's he meeting us?", asked Matt.

"1:15, he said."

Angel pulled into a parking lot behind a strip mall, switching off the engine and leaving on the radio, which was tuned to an alternative rock station. The last guitar solo of Smells Like Teen spirit finished, and the announcer's voice came onto the radio and announced the time, which was 1:00.

Angel turned in his seat and faced the two teenagers.

"I'm bored.", he said matter-of-factly.

"I have hash.", Matt said with a smile.

"Pack a bowl, spaz.", demanded Damien.

Matt eased the shit out of his pocket along with a small pipe and a lighter. Laying the pipe on his lap, Matt opened the ziplock bag and cut a chunk out of the hash that lay inside, packing the crumbly substance into the bowl of the pipe and put it to his lips. Then, he lit the dope and inhaled sharply. Almost immediately, Matt felt different. Good different, like he was at his girlfriend's house and getting a little funny in her room. Things seemed more hazy, a little lighter, more laid back. He passed the smoking pipe over to Damien and blew the smoke out of his lungs.

"This is some pretty good shit.", remarked Damien after he took a hit off the pipe and passing it to Angel.

A big gray van pulled up a short distance from them.

"Here's our man guys. Gimme your money.", Angel said.

Matt and Angel pulled out their wallets and pulled out $50 altogether and gave it to Angel. Angel took the money and got out of the car, walking to the back of the van. As he did, a tall black man climbed out, accompanied by two Mexican cholos who looked like they came straight off a football team. Their heads were shaved and they wore Dickies pants and dark overshirts. They walked with Angel and Kris for a little bit, but then Kris told them to go relax and they sat down near the van. Kris walked with Angel to the back of his van, staggering a little on the way but regaining his balance quickly.

"He looks drunk.", said Matt, watching the deal from Angel's car.

"Too drunk. He's gonna get himself arrested.", he added.

"You can never be too drunk.", laughed Damien.

Matt smiled and relaxed, leaning back into his seat.

Inside the van, Angel and Kris talked business.

"Yeah man, I have the shit right here." Kris opened a small, nondescript gray box laying on a miniature table in the van. Inside lay an ounce of premium hydrophonic Canadian marijuana. Kris's hands shook as he picked up the sack. He didn't feel well. He thought of going to the hospital, but he had decided against it in hopes of eventually feeling better.

"You don't look good, man. You should go see a doctor.", Angel said, putting the $150 on the table.

"I'll be fine, fool…All I need is just some rest. I've been workin' too hard."

Kris's eyes were jaundiced and dark bags lay underneath them. His skin flaked a little, and he constantly itched at his cheek. His cheek was swollen and red from being scratched so much and his fingers were stained red from coming into contact with the blood that lay in his scratched cheek.

"What the fuck happened to you though? How'd you get so sick?", questioned Angel.

"My brother bit me."

Angel laughed.

"Nah fool, seriously. What happened?" Angel asked.

"My brother bit me this morning!", yelled Kris, hanging his head low and staring at the floor of the van.

"You don't believe me?" Here, look.

Kris pulled up his shirt and pointed to a missing section of skin on his upper bicep. It was a nasty tint of red and yellow, and dried blood ran down the sides.

" Jesus christ fool! You should go to a hospital for that! You could die from that shit!", Angel exclaimed.

Kris pulled down his shirt and lay his head down.

"I tried going this morning. They're all busy with the same shit. Fuck em. I'll just pour some rubbing alcohol and slap on a band-aid for this."

"Okay then, foo…do it your own way. I'm just gonna leave now with my herb. Late."

Angel grabbed his pot and stuffed it in his pocket. He turned and put out his hand to shake Kris's, but Kris just lay face down on the van's table.

"Kris, you OK man?"

Kris didn't respond.

"Kris? You still awake?"

Angel shook him hard with both hands and felt for his pulse. He put a finger on his neck. Dead.

_I was just talking to him a second ago._

Angel walked to the other side of the van and gazed at Kris.

Outside the van, the cholos sat, smoking, laughing, keeping an eye on the deal. They realized, suddenly, that it had been over 15 minutes since they had seen their boss. This concerned them. In rapid Spanish, they agreed to go over to the van and knock on the door. As they approached the van's backdoor, they heard two gunshots. Drawing their own guns, they rushed over and threw open the door.

Angel stood rigidly, holding a smoking Glock 22 and looking over the dead body of his friend. He had shot him dead in his own vehicle. The plain grey interior was streaked with blood and bits of face and bone. Kris was on the floor, half his face blown off. His eyes were still open, although the color was drained and all that remained were just a pair of milky orbs. It had happened so suddenly. Kris looked like he had passed out and Angel tried to wake him, and felt his pulse. Kris had no pulse. Angel walked to the other side of the van and then Kris just lunged at him and bit his arm. Then, he tried to bite his neck. Angel had no choice but to kill him to avoid being killed himself.

Now, Angel faced death once again in the span of less than a minute. The overgrown cholos yelled at him to put down the gun. Angel raised his arms to show them he was no threat, but he still held his gun. He yelled at them to put theirs down. They shook their heads and started denying the order. Angel was going to have to make his move quick or they were going to kill him where he stood. _Where's my chance!_, he thought.

"Matt wake up!", yelled Damien.

Matt woke up from his sleep. He was still in Angel's car. He heard shouts in Spanish coming from the grey van that was still parked a short distance away from them. The two cholos were pointing large handguns into the back of the dealer's van.

"I heard a gunshot like a second ago.", said Damien.

"Where's Angel?", asked Matt.

"He's the one their pointing guns at!" Damien pointed to Angel's figure in the back of the van.

"We need to do something.", said Matt.

"Like what? What are we gonna do, jump them?"

Matt looked around the car. He looked to the driver's seat. The keys still dangled from the ignition. "I got it!", he exclaimed. Matt leapt over the seats and jumped in the driver's seat. He turned the key and hit the gas, revving the engine powerfully.

The cholos turned around, distracted by the sound. Angel took advantage of their mistake, raising his pistol to casually shoot them both. They were hit, but they didn't go down. Angel jumped from the van and ran to his own car, occasionally turning around to take a potshot at them. The cholos still ran after him, speaking in rapid fire Spanish and firing their own guns at him.

Inside the car, Matt shifted out of park and hit the gas, speeding down the parking lot to move alongside Angel. Angel used the car as a shield, crouching down beside the trunk and squeezing off a number of shots at the advancing cholos, catching them both in the throat and chest. Finally, they fell with a thump against the pavement. Angel walked up to the bodies and grabbed the pistols from the corpses and opened the door of his car, sitting in the passenger seat.

"Go, fool.", Angel growled. Matt gunned the engine, speeding out of the parking lot and heading to the nearest freeway onramp.

Damien broke the silence. "What the fuck was all that about?"

Angel leaned his head against the window and tried to ignore Damien.

"Angel, are you there? Why did you kill those people?"

Angel closed his eyes and tried to ignore him.

"Angel, I'm gonna hop out of the car and go find a cop if you don't answer me. I'm not gonna ride in a car with a murderer."

That did it. Angel turned around and socked Damien in the nose. Hard. His head snapped back and banged against the metal near the back window of the car. Damien's eyes teared, he tasted blood and his vision swam. He resisted the urge to hit back and instead stared down at the floor.

Angel wasn't through yet. He hopped in the back and hit Damien in the face once more, putting him down in his seat. He grabbed Damien by his shirt and held him against the seat.

"Fool, that shit was not murder. That was self-defense. They were gon' kill me. The shit that happened in the back of the van was self-defense too. Kris tried to eat me, fool. He actually bit my arm. What kind of crazy person does that shit? If I didn't kill him, he would have killed me. But don't you tell no one that I killed him or else I will shoot you. Angel stuck the muzzle of his Glock into Damien's chin. In fact, we didn't even see each other today, agreed?"

Angel smiled at Damien and waved the gun in his face before he hopped over the seats and sat down again.

"Matt, take me to your house.", Angel said.

"Angel, we can't stay in the city. People probably saw that. We need to get as far away from Reseda as possible.", Matt said, serious.

"Fool, people are looking for us right now here. We should just go to your house and stay there til the night time."

Matt passed a car that was going a bit too slow and merged into another lane.

"Angel, trust me. Let's just stop over at a gas station and think this out."

Angel knew that what Matt was saying was true. If they went back home, the police would find them for sure. If they stayed moving down the 101, they would hit Canoga Park and they would stay at one of Damien's friend's houses for the time being. Angel closed his eyes and laid back in his seat. He knew that what was going on was bad. Kris was dead when he felt his pulse. Kris should not have gotten up and bit his arm. But deep down inside, Angel knew whatever was going on was going to get worse.

Then, a pair of red and blue lights appeared in the rear view mirror.

(Cliffhanger! So, what do you think? Should I continue?)


	2. The Pact

The Pact

Matt pulled over onto the side of the freeway. Behind them, the police car stopped, also.

"Damien, hold the shit." ordered Angel

Angel tossed the ounce into Damien's lap. Damien quickly shoved the bag in between the seats and wiped the rest of the blood off his face with the arm of his shirt. Angel slipped his guns under his seat and rolled down his window, resting his wounded arm on the outside of it.

"What if he wants to search the car?" Matt asked.

"Tell him your in a hurry and you want to get home." suggested Damien.

"Fool this isn't even your car! We could get in trouble for this! Fuck!" Angel groaned, banging his foot against the floor.

"Don't worry about it, I'll tell him I left my license at home." Matt said.

Matt's cell phone rang and he answered it.

"Hello?"

"Matt you guys have to come get me right now. The schools holding everyone in and not letting anyone leave. They're saying terrorists attacked the city! Are things ok?"

"Lauren I have to go."

"Come get me please!"

Matt hung up just as a cop walked up to the driver's window.

"Hello, boys."

"A little early in the day for someone your age to be ridin' around in a vehicle, I reckon?"

The cop really was a full blooded Southerner, straight out of a bad movie. The cop was powerfully built. Six foot four, a wide chest, and long powerful legs with a pair of combat boots strapped on. The big .44 Colt holstered at his waist only added to his menacing presence. He had straw blonde hair and pearly white teeth that reminded Matt of old Mafia movies where the hitman flashed his victim a grin before killing him. Of course, no highway patrolman's appearance could be complete without a pair of mirrored CHP aviator sunglasses, which only intimidated Matt more, seeing his pale, anxiety ridden face in the reflective lenses.

Angel replied to the cop's sarcastic question. "No man, we dropped out."

The cop chuckled, his chest rising as he did. "Sure ya did. Can I see your license and registration, please?"

Angel slowly pulled out his wallet and handed the necessary information to him.

The cop smiled like a shark and returned to his car and put in the necessary information.

Matt looked over to Angel.

"What if asks about the shooting?"

Angel stared ahead and answered. "We're gonna tell him we don't know shit."

The cop returned to the car, still grinning and acting arrogant.

"Angel Hernandez? You are the owner of this vehicle, correct?"

"Yes, sir." said Angel in a monotone voice.

"Why is this young man driving your car?" he asked, gesturing towards Matt.

"Officer, this is my cousin. I trust him with my life. Last night I went to a party and I drank alcohol. Today I still don't feel good and I don't want to drive without being 100, you know? So I let my cousin drive for a little bit of the way down the freeway while I just relaxed a bit, you know?" Angel replied apologetically.

The officer smirked and spoke.

"I don't care about your cousin driving your car without a license."

"I'm here to question you about a shooting that took place about half an hour ago in Reseda. There was a shootout between a Mexican youth matching your description and two gangster types. There was only one fatality. A nigger was found shot dead in the back of his van. We don't know if it was self-inflicted or what. Two other guys were found at the scene not too far from the van. They're some lucky pricks, though, I'll tell ya what. Two slugs in the gut and one in the throat and they're still well enough to bite the paramedics there to help them. Real Mexican hospitality there, right fellas?" The cop laughed heartily and slapped his hand against the top of the car.

"But you gentlemen wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would ya?"

"No, sir." replied Angel. Matt and Damien shook their heads as their response.

"You don't mind if I look around the car a little bit, would you?"

Angel swallowed and looked the cop in the face.

"No, officer, we can't do that. We're in a hurry. We need to go pick up his sister from school." Angel gestured towards Damien.

The cop grimaced. He wanted to look inside that car and these young punks weren't letting him do that. Based on the car model, the people inside and basic cop instinct, he had a feeling that these people knew what happened behind that liquor store and he wasn't going to let them go without a fight. No, sir. California State Highway Patrolman Rex Jackson never gave up.

Rex peered into the back of the car. "Damien", the big teenager in the back was sitting back in his seat, trying to avert making eye contact with him. He bled from a fresh cut under his eye and his cheeks were swollen.

"Holy moly, what happened to your eye, son?" Rex asked in a fatherly manner.

Damien smiled and told him he fell earlier in the day.

Rex smirked. "Looks like you duked it out with someone."

Angel looked to Rex and spoke.

"Officer we gotta go pick up his sister from school and get home. I hope you find your man but there's too much weird stuff going today to just stay here and chase monsters."

Rex opened his mouth to protest but then his radio squawked to life.

_Officer in need of assistance at Reseda and Sherman Way. Shots fired._

Rex spoke into the comm piece of the radio. "Roger that, command. Enroute to scene."

_10-4._

"See you later, gentlemen, try to stay out of trouble."

Rex returned to his own car and sped off, leaving only dust and an eerie feeling behind him.

Inside the car, the stunned occupants began to laugh and relax a little. "We just got away with murder.", Matt said, taking his hands off the wheel.

"Move over, man.", Angel said to Matt, motioning for them both to switch seats. Matt got out of the car and moved to the passenger seat, while Angel sat in the driver's seat. He turned the key in the ignition. The radio chirped to life. "_Unconfirmed reports say that the bite of the infected transfers the virus directly into the victim, causing death within 4 hours and rescuciation within 2. It is 99 fatal and there is no cure."_ Angel switched it off and put his foot on the gas, merging into a lane and heading to the nearest freeway exit.

"I heard you talking on the phone before that pig showed up.", Angel spoke.

"Yeah?", replied Matt.

"We gotta go get all the homies and get outta here.", he continued.

"Somethin' big is going down and I don't wanna be around to see it. We're gonna go back to Reseda and pick up all our friends and then head out. I say we go to Ojai. My cousin lives there up in the mountains. We can hide up there in his farm. It'll be comfy. He got his own cows and vegetables and shit. It'll be all good, you'll see."

"I dunno, but I agree with you. If this shit turns serious then we gotta get out of the city."

Angel stopped at a stoplight and turned his head to face Damien.

"Are you with us?"

Damien looked unsure. He was young, only sixteen. He hadn't faced much in his short years. Being big and tall and having a reputation as the best fighter all through school made it so that he didn't have much to be afraid of. But today, on the strangest of days, Damien felt threatened. All around him, he felt a wave of unease, like an impending danger was approaching him. His instincts told him to be alert, to be on the guard against the danger. But he didn't know what it was. In a split second, Damien made his decision. He would go with them. He would get a head start ahead of the danger, running from it so that one day he hoped he would come back and defeat it.

"I'm with you."

The three men in the car put their hands together, and for a split second they gripped them together in an unspoken pact. Together they would fight, together they would survive. They would watch each other's backs and pounce on any danger that threatened each other's survival. They all let go and sat back in their seats. Angel continued forward to Reseda High. After this, they would not remain in the city for much longer. All that they were here to do was collect their friends and then leave.

Angel parked the car and turned to Matt. "Call up Lauren.", he ordered.

Matt pulled out his cell phone and dialed the number.

"Matt! Where are you?"

Lauren pressed her cell phone against her ear hurriedly, her heart jumping with joy at the prospect of escape. The LAUSD had ordered all the schools in the district closed and barricaded when reports of unprovoked attacks by the recently deceased were confirmed. No student could leave until further notice. This decree also forbade parents and guardians from picking the students up, but the school officials had not told the students that yet. At Reseda High, the faculty had ordered all 2,000 students to be packed into the school's gymnasium, which by itself could only hold 1,000 people. The other 1000 hung out in the quad, sleeping, talking, looking for a way out.

"Come outside! We're here to pick everyone up. Where's Alex and Nick?"

"I was talking to them like half an hour ago. They said that some football players were organizing a breakout and they were gonna join them. I dunno where they are now."

"Try and find them. If you can't, then run outside and come with us. We're leaving the city."

"Alright, I'll call you back in ten."

"Late."

Around them, society was crumbling. Already the inner city had fallen to the dead, and it was only a matter of a few short hours before the infection swept over the barricades and into the Valley. Then, the shit would truly hit the fan.


	3. It Spreads

The Plague Spreads

It was hot. All around Sergeant Anthony O'Shea it was hot. All he could taste, feel, or think about was fucking hot it was. The smell of burning hair, paper and flesh clouded his nostrils and he felt the overall sense of disgust, despair and rage starting to take a toll on his sanity. Then, things began to spin.

When he came to, he was leaning with his arm against the side of a SWAT truck, puking his guts out. Beneath him, broken glass crunched under his boots. All the sudden, Anthony felt overcome with a new wave of nausea. His stomach shuddered and he let go, a new pile of vomit falling from his mouth and onto the ground.

A voice called from behind him. "Fuck, Sarge! Couldn't you be a little more subtle!",cracked Edgar Salas, rear guard for Anthony's SWAT unit.

Anthony puked the remainder of his lunch and with a spike of strength, flipped Edgar off and went into the rear of the SWAT van to get some water. Inside the van, Anthony paused and looked into the mirror. His light blue riot gear uniform was matted with sweat and dried bloodstains. His short, thin black hair was oily and smelled of cordite. Anthony snatched a bottle of water and tore off the cap, drinking it like an animal and not caring about the droplets of water that fell from his lips and onto the front of his armor. After finishing the water, Anthony took four more clips for his Colt M4 from the ammo crate in the van and put them in his side pack. Outside, rapid footsteps and shouting were heard.

"They're coming!"

Anthony jumped out of the van and ran with his fellow officers to the barricades. He came to a stop behind a police car's open door with Edgar. Edgar held his MP5 over the top of the door, gazing at the advancing crowd of undead cannibals ahead of them. Fifteen feet from them, a red line had been drawn. It was also known as the "Step over this and your dead" line. According to the rules of riot control, if the rioters stepped over this line the local police force were legally authorized to kill them. Today, for the first time in California history, this law was being put to test. Ahead of the line, a lone policewoman covered by four officers stood on top of a car with a bullhorn. She spoke to the crowd of advancing rioters, warning them that once they had passed that line that they would be killed. She knew they wouldn't listen, but it was her job to warn them so that in the future, when lawsuits were being filed against the LAPD, they could say that the rioters in Beverley Hills were warned that they would be killed if they came any closer.

Edgar looked over at Anthony. "This ain't no riot, man. It's a disease."

Anthony thumbed the safety of his M4 and bit his lip. He looked into Edgar's eyes and said with a sense of purpose, "I'll do whatever it takes to make sure I go home tonight. I've seen what they do. They'll take slug after slug and just keep on comin'."

Edgar listened to Anthony's speech, taking time to eye the advancing crowd.

"I'm gonna shoot 'em in the head. Fuck police brutality laws, I'm looking out for myself."

Edgar nodded solemenly, but his eyes still showed fear.

"The way some of them look…they shouldn't be up and walking around. They're supposed to be dead."

"GET READY!", an observer on a car shouted.

The thousand of L.A's finest officers got into combat positions simeltanously around the city of Beverely Hills and Downtown. The undead victims of the cannibal onslaught had sensed (correctly) that there was no more food in the inner city for them, so they pushed further uptown. The police were doing their damndest to make sure that the infection didn't spread into the Valley and beyond, so they hastily moved their officers to key points along the city where the dead were known to be advancing.

The first to die was the policewoman and the four officers along the barricades. The dead piled onto the car and snatched her by the ankle, pulling her down and into the swarm of dead, which rapidly bit into her body. The cops protecting her fired into the crowd blindly, ignoring the dead that came from behind and put them on their chests, and then swiftly killed them. The crowd moved forward more. Some officers ignored the one step over the line rule and began firing into the crowd. Some of the cannibals fell, while the stronger ones took bullet after bullet and walked still. Like an army, the dead kept coming, killing everything in their way. Anthony took aim on a group of dead ten feet away and pulled the trigger; killing four of them with a well-aimed burst into their heads Edgar rapidly fired his MP5 into another group of them.

Other SWAT officers threw live fragmentation grenades into the crowd, blowing apart hordes of them and sending chunks of flesh everywhere. Unfortunately, this also had the side effect of catching several blocks of street on fire. While the cops fought on, unattended and damaged vehicles came into contact with flame and naturally, exploded. Shrapnel and flame went everywhere, killing friend and foe alike.

Nearby building shook, coating the ground and everyone on it with eerie grey ash and broken glass.

The sudden explosions sent Anthony and Edgar to the ground. They quickly got up and assessed the situation. Fortunately, the explosions had also sent many of the undead to the ground. They would be getting up soon. Anthony took this as an opportunity to flee.

"There's too many of them. We're leaving." Anthony said to Edgar.

Anthony wasn't the only one with that idea. Around them, the surviving officers either still attempted to fight the dead, or were running up the street to escape them.

Edgar nodded in agreement and they both turned around and ran, occasionally turning around to shoot at the dead who were going a bit too fast.

The surviving officers of the Defend Downtown operation walked up the street in stunned silence. Some of them would attempt to contact HQ and ask for further orders. Others would go into the city and seek out information on family members or loved ones. Anthony and Edgar had other ideas. Knowing that Southern California was going to fall to the dead soon, they decided to gather up the fellow officers in their SWAT unit and head west, to the ocean. From there, they would go to one of the barrier islands on the California coast and settle there and wait for the plague to resolve itself. This would be a difficult operation, but Anthony knew that it was the best one.

Whether or not the cop's idea would work, he knew that it was better than sitting around waiting to die.


	4. Revolt

Revolt

Inside the gym, a basketball game was being played. Ashley Ferguson, sweating and moving on pure adrenaline caught the basketball out of mid-air and tossed it to her teammate, Cory Smith and chucked it through the hoop with skill. Then, the coach blew his whistle and announced a break. Exhausted, Ashley walked off the court and untied her hair knot, which was twisted in a ponytail. Her long brown hair unraveled and dropped below her shoulders. Ashley sat down on one of the folded wrestling mats on the side of the gym. She looked up at the big digital clock near the entrance to the gym. The clock read 4:30. Upset, she let out a long groan and looked to Cory, who was walking up to the mats.

Ashley and Cory were both fifteen years old. They both were athletic, veterans of many different soccer, basketball, baseball and volleyball teams. Though not related in anyway, Ashley and Cory were both close to each other, having pretty much grown up together. Ashley stood at 5'5 with a small, fast runner's frame while Cory was 6' and had a tall surfer's build.

"When are we going to be allowed to go home?" she whined.

"I dunno. If we're not out of here by seven I'm hopping the wall and taking the bus back to my house." Cory answered with a shrug of his shoulders.

"I wonder if the cafeteria's open." Ashley said.

"Let's go out to the quad." Cory suggested.

Ashley stood up and walked with Cory out to the quad. A few paces from them, students sat huddled together with large pieces of plain white cardboard, writing various protest phrases on them.

The student body was getting more and more restless as the day went on. Rumors of a massacre in Downtown LA and a shooting involving Reseda High students near the school were being spread. And that wasn't even the worst news. New York City, Washington D.C, and Miami, Florida had declared states of emergency when "suspicious persons" caused mass riots in the capitals of each city. The President had recorded a message to the American populace to stay indoors and watch for persons acting erratically, and the aforementioned message was being played every ten minutes on every radio station across America.

* * *

"Okay, we need some more equipment." announced Brandon Kelly, quarterback for the varsity football team.

"What are we missing?" asked a linebacker.

"We need five sets of shoulder pads, five helmets, and fifteen sets of ten pound weights."

"Alright, I'll send out for it." said Austin Freeman, tearing off a page off his notebook and handing it to a freshman running back, who exited the locker room and went to the equipment room.

The boys in the locker room were preparing for war. Brandon Kelly, the leader of the Student's Revolt, was planning a massive breakout. He had heard of the massacre in Downtown and from there, he gathered his friends and all who were willing to take up arms against the school staff and escape from L.A. They had spent the last two hours gathering up equipment that could be used for warfare. Baseball bats, football armor, weights and even tennis rackets littered the locker room floor. As soon as the last pieces of equipment were delivered, he would begin training his "soldiers" for combat. He sat down and looked over to his locker. His aluminum fifteen pound baseball bat lay against it. Over the last hour, Brandon had modified his bat to hold two ten pound weights along the end of it. Next to the bat, his football armor and helmet lay there.

_The school cops will probably pull guns on us. I hope that my armor will stop a bullet. _Brandon thought to himself.

The two freshmen returned to the locker room, pushing a cart with all sorts of equipment on it. Baseball bats, weights, armor, and even baseballs.

"Alright, listen up!" Brandon shouted.

Altogether, there were about fifty people in the locker room. All of them had their football armor on. They each held a helmet in their hands and stood at attention, listening intently to their leader.

"You're all here for a reason."

"You don't agree with what's going on today. You think that the administration's decision to leave us in the dark about what's going on today is bullshit."

"You want to go home and see your family. You're not going to let anyone stand in your way of that."

"I've decided to take the preemptive approach and fight my way out. If you don't to come with me and escape from here then I suggest you leave now."

Brandon took his baseball bat and lifted it up in the air.

"This is how your bat should look."

"If you can't swing a bat as heavy as mine is, then put the minimum amount of weight you can hold on it."

Several people slipped weights on their bats.

"When you swing, outstretch your elbows fully and take a step forward as you swing."

Brandon demonstrated the posture.

Everyone in the room followed along with Brandon's demonstration, catching on fairly quickly.

"The stragedy is to move as quickly as you can to the gates and don't give anyone any warning. Swing first and ask questions later. Remember, you're not going to get in trouble for attacking members of the staff because there's no one left to prosecute you for it."

After awhile, Brandon was done with the combat lesson and he finally was ready to wage war on the school's faculty.

"I want everyone to put on their armor and their helmets and follow me outside to the quad."

Like soldiers, the students in the locker room slipped on their armor and helmets and filed out to the door.

* * *

Campus Supervisor Howard Shay saw them first. Groups of ten marching towards the gate. They were the kids who dressed in black and put blond streaks in their hair and dressed in combat boots and band shirts every day. "Punks", if you will. He preferred to call them queers. They were holding signs with words on them like "RESEDA HIGH LIES" and "TELL US THE TRUTH" or "Can't we all just get along?" or his favorite, "PRINCIPAL TARIN IS AN ASSHOLE." They crowded the assistant principals who stood rigidly at the gate, yelling obscenities at them and waving their fists in their face.

"What do we want?"

"An answer!"

"When do we want it?"

"Now!"

Howard Shay slowly got up off his seat that table, grunting a bit as he lifted his 48 year old big linebacker frame off the table and started walking towards the supposed leader of the demonstration, a short blonde girl wearing an AC/DC baby T that didn't cover her belly button.

"Alright, missus. enough with the demonstration. The '60s are over." He pulled her by the shoulder back from the face of an assistant principal.

Laurel escaped the hold of the big campus supervisior and kicked him in the shin hard.

"Don't touch me, asshole!", she shrieked. She smiled as he grabbed his leg in pain and saw his red, enraged face.

"Ha, your eyes bulge when you gets pissed!", Laurel giggled.

Then, she ran, still giggling, knowing that within the next ten minutes she'd be free.

The demonstration had now grabbed the attention of all the students in the quad, who crowded around and watched the unrest. The demonstrators pushed at the gates, shouting at the school faculty and holding up their signs. Ashley Ferguson and Cory Smith watched the scene from atop a set of stairs overlooking the quad.

"Look down there! Someone else is coming."

Cory looked down and pointed at one of the people in full football armor and wielding a baseball bat with twenty pounds of added weight.

"That looks like Brandon."

"No shit? What's he doing here?"

Brandon rushed the crowd. Some saw him and jumped to get out of the way, while others only learned he was there when he knocked them over when he rushed to get at the front of the gate. The first to be felled by Brandon's bat was the school cop, Officer Mooney. Brandon's bat connected with his right eye, breaking the delicate bone structure between the face and the brain. Mooney collapsed to the ground, brain and blood seeping out of his ear. Brandon followed up by smashing the giant Masterlock on the gate and then running away from the scene. The demonstrators threw open the gate and rushed the faculty, who were still stunned by the sudden death of Officer Mooney.

"Holy shit, he just killed Mooney!", exclaimed Cory, who then tugged at Ashley's sleeve.

"I think we should go." suggested Cory.

Ashley nodded in response and ran down the stairs with Cory. They were going to run out the front door of Reseda.

From the gate and into the quad, the fight spilled out between the students and faculty. Assistant principals were using what little fighting knowledge they knew to subdue the football players, but were losing wholeheartedly, instead falling to their bats.

Brandon was amazed by the success of his plan. The demonstrators had done the first attack for him and were doing pretty well without the help of his soldiers. He looked to where it first began. Mooney's corpse was still laying there.

Brandon looked at the corpse and ran to it. Mooney's gun was still in the holster. "_With the gun, I'm gonna have the real power.",_ he thought. Brandon unbuttoned the holster and retrieved the gun, a two-tone Beretta 92 and slipped it behind his waist.

As fast as it began, the fight was over. The school faculty was either on the ground dead, unconscious or not present. Students streamed out of the school in droves. Brandon ran to his friend Austin Freeman and his other friends out in the parking lot. "Hey man, guess what I found?" Brandon laughed. "What?"

Brandon grinned and pulled out the gun and waved it.

"Nice find! You should come with us, man.", said Patrick, a friend of Austin's.

"We're gonna go store robbing. Word is that no one's working on Ventura Boulevard today." said Austin.

"What are we standing around here for then?", said Brian.

Together, the three jock criminal/murderers piled into Austin's Ford Suburban and pulled out of Reseda High's parking lot and into the city. These people would be the true villains in the coming world, preying on the weak, robbing and killing innocent people for fun and profit.

"Alright then, I'll see you in a minute."

Matt hung up his cell phone and gazed out the window intently. Then, he saw her. Laurel ran up to the car and banged on the window loudly. Damien reached over and opened the door for her. She climbed into the back and sat next to Matt, breathing deeply.

"Aight, we ready to go now or what?"

"Yeah."

Angel started up the car and drove out of the parking lot. On the way, he noticed two people, a boy and a girl walking together down the street. He stopped and rolled down his window and pulled alongside them.

"Hey, you guys from the school?"

He motioned with his hand to the school.

'Yeah.", they replied.

"You need a lift or what?"

Chris replied to the Mexican's offer of a ride with the question "where to?"

"Ojai."

Chris was familiar with Ojai. Just a ten minute drive from where he learned to surf, Ojai was where his grandparents were from.

He looked at Ashley and she shook her head.

"No. I want to go see my family."

"I can't go anywhere she's not going, thanks for the offer though."

"Alright, bye."

Angel hit the gas and sped away from the duo, heading to the freeway. As he approached the on-ramp, he noticed a bright orange sign saying "No Entrance."

"WELL FUCK THAT!", he yelled, hitting his dashboard with a closed fist. He turned the wheel abruptly left and hit the gas, heading down Ventura Boulevard.

Behind him, the duo from before sat down at a bus stop. They were planning on catching the Ventura Bus all the way down.

All over Los Angeles, the plague was beginning to make itself known. Unprovoked attacks were being seen everywhere, with the aggressor often biting other people and tearing out chunks of their flesh. ER wards were reporting violent crime was up that day 100 percent from any other day.

And now, it was early evening. People were heading back home from a hard day at work, carrying the infection with them and into the Valley.

(Sorry I rushed at the end but I really want to get the infection going so that there will be more action later in the story.)


	5. Survival

If civilization had lasted long enough to keep a record of what was going on, they would have most likely listed the time when the infection spread into the San Fernando Valley as 6:30 pm. Completely and blissfully unaware of what was happening, husbands; wives, daughters and sons returned home, or were at home or on the street or attacked in their cars by the groaning bloodthirsty cannibal shells of flesh they called their loved ones. (The really unlucky ones were torn limb from limb by complete strangers.)

_So this is where it ends, huh? _Thought 40 year old Candice Ray, housewife, mother of two and former soccer player as she piled groceries into the back of her black Ford Suburban. _Throwing groceries in the back of my SUV with my two crazy kids and heading back home to my asshole adulterous corrupt lawyer of a husband. _She thought of her husband, who was four years her elder and thought that he had playing Candice into thinking that he was faithful and never fooled around with his desk clerks at the office. _He's so great looking and he has such natural charm. Money and charisma too. Huh. He must be bored with me if he's fucking everything that moves like this. _She glanced over to her kids, aged thirteen and eleven._ Assholes, both of them._

The sixteen year old had been nothing but a pain in the ass for most of his life. Anger management, bad grades in school, and all day today he'd been bitching and insisting that the entire family go home and 'fortify" to guard against the rioters inDowntown. She thought that he had heard from his schoolmates that the rioters were crossing over to the Valley and now he was trying to just get attention from her to listen to him.

Candice set the last bag down in the seat. Inside laid a jug of milk and some hamburger meat. She noticed that the hamburger meat was laying directly in a ray of heated sunlight beaming through the window of the Suburban. _That's not good. If I leave it in the sunlight it'll get all yucky and stuff. _With the dedication of an obsessive compulsive, she set the bag aside into a shaded corner of the backseat, along with her purse. Done with her task, she closed the back of the Suburban and yelled to her kids to cease playing in the lot.

Candice heard a scream from the sidewalk next to the parking lot and she looked over at the commotion.

The people around her seemed to be panicked. Along the sidewalk, she heard yelps and the rapid footsteps of people running. She glanced to them, watching them from behind her sunglasses. She heard one man yell "That guy just killed my wife!" pointing behind him to a drunk-looking older man with what looked like fresh blood running down his chin. Behind that man were about fifteen others in about the same condition.

Candice just gazed at the crowd and took off her sunglasses for the last time. The harsh evening sunlight made her squint, but her vision was good enough to see that the crowd was entering the parking lot. _Maybe they're all just coming in here to wash off._ She felt a tug at her shirt. She looked down and saw her sixteen year old looking her straight in the eye and completely serious.

"Mom. We need to go. Now."

The eleven year old just watched the crowd, now only ten feet away.

"Mom, we need to leave. Don't go over there."

Against all better judgment, Candice walked over to the crowd and patted one of them on the shoulder, an old lady who looked like she had been dead for ten years.

"Are you okay? Do you want me to call an ambulance?" The old lady just gazed at Candice and with an air of concentration, swatted her in the eye and bit into a major artery in her neck. Blood sprayed from Candice's neck grotesquely and drenched the surroundings. Candice collapsed to the ground and looked up at the crowd which was now surrounding her. Before the last three entered the circle, Candice heard a car door slam and an engine start. She saw her Suburban driving away at top speed. _Fucking Brian! Leaving me here to die like this…_ She saw faces. They were human but it seemed like everything good and wholesome about them were gone and replaced with a malevolent, demonic look. The old lady was first to grab at Candice's brown dress and rip it off, then tugging at the flesh on her chest intending to rip it out and feast on it. Candice spat at the woman's face and yelled her final words as loud as she could.

"_I WAS ONLY TRYING TO HELP YOU, YOU STUPID BITCH!"_

Thankfully, Brian and Liz Ray weren't around to witness their mother's death. They had already agreed that it was her own fault. In fact, they didn't really care that their mom was dead. They would always remember her as the source of the dysfunction in their family. Their father, Dennis Ray, whom they were on the way to pick up from their modest suburban Sherman Oaks home, did nothing but try and help Candice try and let go of her anger and arrogance resulting from her abusive childhood, even paying in excess of $2000 a month for her therapy and psychiatric treatment.

Brian breezed through the stoplights, skillfully swerving past crashed cars and the walking dead alike. Ventura Boulevard was a disaster zone. Fires burned unopposed and thick, black smoke made it seem like it was already nighttime when it wasn't. The Boulevard's famous shops and restaurants were completely devoid of the living, and windows were broken and broken glass and worthless trinkets littered the streets. Past Van Nuys and Ventura, bodies lay crumpled and broken everywhere. They wore blue jeans and white t-shirts and had red headbands wrapped around their foreheads. Next to each body an AK-47 assault rifle laid next to them. Around them, the dead just stood, staring into the distance waiting for more victims. It was obvious that the massacre had occurred recently and the bodies were that of local Mexican gang members, apparently trying to make a last stand against the dead. Brian stopped the car thirty feet from the scene and considered the situation.

"Why'd we stop?" asked Liz.

"Liz, I gotta get out for a minute."

"Why?"

"I need to go get a gun."

"Daddy has a gun."

"Yes, but those guns laying on the street are better than Dad's gun. I'll be back in less than five minutes, I swear."

"What if one of those things show up?"

"Just hide and stay quiet. I'll be back for you."

Brian exited the Suburban, taking his mom's gym bag out of the back and jumping out of the driver's side and running down the street. He moved quickly, his tall runner's frame carrying him quickly. He'd seen how those things moved. If he just kept ahead of them, he should be able to outrun them. Before he got any closer, Brian stopped and unzipped the gym bag. He discarded some items, sweatpants, women's t-shirts and anything else he could part with. Now, the bag would be able to hold more than three of the AK-47s. He swung the bag over his shoulder and continued running until he reached the first of the bodies. He scooped up the AK, putting it in the bag quickly. The zombies hadn't noticed him yet. On a whim, he searched the pockets of the dead gang member, finding a cheap brown four inch folding knife. He pocketed the knife and proceeded to the next body, taking another AK and putting it in the bag.

Now, the cannibals noticed him. The three undead let out an elated groan and slowly lurched towards Brian, arms outstretched. Brian ran to the next two bodies, repeating the process of taking the guns and searching the pockets. This time, Brian got lucky. These gangsters both had two spare clips as well as a box of sixty bullets each. By this time, the cannibals had found some friends and were now walking towards brian with a hungry gleam in their eyes. Brian quickly ran from them and went back the way he came, smiling a little because he now had a fighting chance.

_A running Ford Suburban. Nice._ Thought criminal street thug Robert Brown as he walked up to the SUV, looking in the windows to see if anyone was inside. _Clear enough_, he thought as he tried opening the driver's door. He was disappointed when he found it was locked. He reached in his backpack and pulled out a nightstick that he had taken off a dead cop and pulled his arm back, ready to smash the window.

Liz tried not to look at the face of the man who was about to smash open the window, instead closing her eyes tightly and trying to believe that this was all a dream. _Brian…where are you?_

When Brian saw the man outside the car, he went apeshit and took an AK out of the bag. Without even thinking, he yanked back the action on the side of the gun and trained the sights on the man's back.

"Get away from the car, asshole!" he yelled.

Robert turned around and saw a fourteen year old with an AK-47 aimed at him. He smiled.

"You're not going to shoot me!"

"What makes you think I won't?" Brian responded.

"You're just a kid! You've never killed anyone!"

"Get the fuck away from the car and I'll let you live."

"I'm takin' this shit." Robert said arrogantly and he calmly tried opening the passenger side door in the back.

Brian calmly let loose a three-round burst into Robert's chest, all three rounds making clean big holes along his breastplate. He staggered back, his head hitting the glass along the door. Then, he fell on his chin onto the pavement below. Brian then went to the driver's door and took out the keys and unlocked the car. He was about to get in when Robert yelled again. "Wait! Come here!" Brian sighed and got out again, walking to the fallen street criminal.

"What do you want?"

Robert coughed up blood and spat onto the pavement.

"Shoot me."

"Why? You're already going to die."

"Shoot me in the head so I won't come back as one of them."

"I thought you had to get bit to become one of them."

"No, it's in us all. When you die naturally, you come back. If you get bit, you become one of them quickly."

"How do you know all this?"

Robert coughed.

"I seen it. My grandpa got sick last week and died in his sleep last night. When we went to his room this morning to check on him, he was one of them. Then, he bit my grandma. She turned an hour later. It has to do with how much of whatever makes you into one of them is in you at a time. Gettin' bit shoots you up with so much of it your body can't handle it and you die right then, then come back. But if you die naturally, like my grandpa did, you come back later. So I think it's in us all, just waiting til we die so it can take over."

"I see." Brian nodded.

"Will you shoot me now?" asked Robert solemnly.

Liz watched the situation from the backseat. She looked away for a second and then saw four undead approaching the car. She frantically banged at the window and got the attention of her brother.

"What's happening?" Brian asked Liz.

"THERE'S FOUR OF THEM BEHIND YOU!"

Brian looked behind him and saw the cannibals not less than seven feet from them. He raised his AK and opened fire, tearing off a large chunk off two of their shoulders. They still kept coming.

"Shoot them in the head! Shoot them in the head!", Robert shouted.

Brian took his advice and adjusted his aim, putting three bullets in the nearest cannibal's head. It exploded and the cannibal collapsed to the ground. Brian repeated this for the last three, killing them instantly. Finally, the threat was gone and blood and bone soaked the pavement. Brian ejected the clip of the AK and checked how many bullets he had left. _10. Gonna have to conserve these. _

Brian looked back at Robert.

"So you still want me to kill you?"

Robert's breathing was shallow and his face was pale. He was dying of blood loss. It wouldn't be long now.

"You might as well. I'll die either way."

Brian smiled and outstretched his hand. Robert took it, shaking Brian's out of mutual respect.

"Sorry I shot you, man."

"Sorry I thought you were some punk white bitch who thought he could handle an AK. Maybe in the next life I'll be a little more kind."

Brian turned to the window, where Liz was watching and told her to close her eyes.

Brian looked back to Robert, breathed deeply and put the muzzle of the AK against Robert's temple. He looked away as he pulled the trigger.

When Liz opened her eyes again, she saw Brian in the driver's seat again. He placed the gear in Drive and then proceeded down Ventura once again, heading to their house. Finally, Brian got off Ventura and drove into the suburbs.

You couldn't say that the events taking place were that different then what was happening in every other major city in the United States, but with carnage and mayhem on this sort of scale now commonplace in such peaceful (sic) places like the quiet, tree-lined sidewalks of the San Fernando Valley, you had to expect that these formerly docile city-dwellers would react to the situation in some interesting ways. Brian switched gears as he drove up the hill to his home. He used what little sunlight there was left to confirm that yes, his father's late-model Cadillac Escalade was parked and a light was on upstairs. Before parking, he looked at his neighbor's house. No lights were on and the driveway was empty. He thought briefly of the former occupants, two elderly Jews and their Great Dane. He wondered if they had survived the first hours of the undead rampage. _I wish the best for everyone but I don't think Mr. and Mrs. Gold made it to the freeway._ He turned to his sister in the backseat and told her to come with him inside. Quickly, he turned the car off and picked up the gym bag, jumping out of the car and locking it behind him. Together, Brian and Liz ran to the door and banged on it loudly. The door opened and with a look of surprise on his face, Mr. Edward Ray looked down and saw his two kids alive and well. Not what he'd been expecting.

"Glad to see you made it." He said confidentely as he led his kids inside the sprawling two story home with a large pool, big living room and fireplace and Jacuzzi. Mr. Ray locked the door behind him and slipped the deadbolt in place.

"Where's your mother?" he asked.

Brian sat down on the couch and looked at his father, putting the gym bag by his side as he did.

"She didn't make it.", he said as calmly as he could.

"Oh.", Edward replied sadly , looking out the window as he did. By the fireplace, his daughter just stared at him as if waiting for him to tell her what to do.

"Liz! How are you doing today, sweetie?", he exclaimed, rushing over to her and giving her a hug and a kiss on the head as he did. "Why don't you go to your room and pack your things in case we have to leave quick. Don't pack too much though, you gotta be able to move around quickly."

"Okay, Dad.", Liz replied blankly. She went to her room and shut the door.

Edward went to the kitchen and opened the liquor cabinet door, taking out a bottle of Crown Royal and two large glasses. He went to the refridgerator and placed the cups directly underneath the ice dispenser.

"It's a miracle the electricity's still working.", he remarked.

"For now.", Brian replied.

"You guys went to the grocery store before you came home, didn't you?"

"Yeah."

"You might want to go get that out of the car before it goes rotten. We might need to live on that for a few days."

"Can I have a drink first?"

"Of course, son, what do you think I'm doing?", Edward said with a laugh as he poured the whisky into the glasses and walked across the cream-colored carpet to the couch. He sat next to his son and placed his son's glass in front of him, sipping at his own as he did.

Brian drank a little, the alcohol calming him and letting him take a more objective look of the situation. The recently deceased had come back to life and began to kill the living. Those that the dead killed also rose within a day. They could only be killed by a lethal blow to the head. Life had now become a game of survival.

"What do you have in that bag there?", Edward asked.

Brian smiled to his dad and unzipped the bag and took out two of the AK-47s, placing one on the glass table in front of him.

"Impressive.", Edward said as he picked up one of the rifles, peering down the sights and checking out the mechanics of the gun. "You'd make it out there with one of these. You don't need to clean these that often." He stood up and raised the AK like he was going to fire it, aiming it down the hall. "Accurate, too. You could just kick back on the roof with one of these and pick off those pus-bags when they come walking up our street."

Brian laughed loudly at his father's humor. He felt better now thanks to the whisky and the fact that he now stood at an advantage against the things that walked outside his door, waiting to make him into a meal.

"You should've seen it earlier, Dad. Ventura was a complete mess. There must've been hundreds of 'em back there."

"Downtown was worse."

Edward placed the AK on the table again and laid his head back against the couch.

"Those things just fucked everything up down there. When I went to work this morning, my boss tore out my secretary's throat with his teeth. Then, she got up five minutes later and killed half the office. I got out of there pretty quick."

"I heard they killed a bunch of cops near Beverely Hills.", Brian said absently.

"Yeah. That's how they spread the infection to the Valley. About ten thousand of those fuckers here came from West L.A. All that they had to do was tear through the five hundred cops guarding the shortcut into the Valley and then walk two miles and start killing people on Ventura Boulevard." Edward laughed out loud and looked at his son.

"We're all victims of incompetence and conspiracy."

"What are you trying to say?", Brian asked, now sitting upright and listening to his father intently.

"I'm saying that what's happening here has a reason and a source. I think that it's manmade. Think about it. People all over the city started getting sick about two weeks ago. Now, seven days later all those poor bastards are dead. Then, these assholes come back to life soon after they die and immediately search out other people. Living people. Then, they kill them and they go out and do the same thing. Everyone else panics and tries to leave town or pick up a weapon and try and fight. So now no one's going to work or buying anything anymore. Our economy is destroyed. Everyone's either indoors hiding out or dead. It's the perfect way to disrupt society. And plus, we're the only country infected in the world right now." Edward paused for a second to sip on his whisky, Brian responding in kind.

"I think it's the Chinese. They own us. Hell, they manufacture everything that's sold in our stores. They own a bunch of factories and businesses and shit like that down here, why couldn't they put this disease in our water and thin out our numbers so they can just come in here and take us over?"

Brian nodded and listened to his dad's belief of what was going on. He didn't really care for explanations. All he wanted was just to have stability and the assurance that the things he once called people stayed away from him. So, Brian told his dad that.

"Dad, we can't worry about what caused this right now. We should be making sure those assholes don't get to us. We should make sure no one tries and jack our supplies. We should just be planning for survival."

"I know that, Brian. Why do you think I came home today? I didn't go out and hop on the freeway north or run to the desert like everyone else did. Everyone who did that is one of them now. I did what the logical thing is. I'm going to wait this out and wait for it to solve itself."

Those words were the most reasonable, most logical words Brian had heard all day. Fighting the dead was impossible because there were too many of them and only so many bullets. Running when possible was always fine, but when one had shelter and supplies to last awhile, like he had now, all he really had to do was just stay quiet and not move around a lot. But still, he had his concerns.

"What do we do if they get in here?"

"We take everything we can and run. The Escalade is fully gassed up and I have big tank of the juice in the back. We can live out of the Escalade on the road if we need to."

"How many weapons do we have?"

"We have my Springfield and three boxes of ammo, my .45 and your AKs."

"We have a lot of food and a generator."

"We're gonna have to go out and get that when we're done talking.", Ed added.

"No, really?"

"The only thing I'm really concerned about is looters. Other people are alive out there and we have some really nice stuff that they could take. Useful stuff."

"We should move the Suburban into the house."

"No, not now, it'll be too much noise. We'll move it in the morning. We do need that food now, though."

"We need to kill the garage door's connection to the electricity and make it openable by hand."

Edward nodded in agreement.

"Alright, enough talking. I'm gonna upstairs, change my clothes and see how many of them are on our block. We need to go get the food out of the Suburban and make sure we stay alive doing it. Get ready to work."

"Okay, Dad." said Brian.

It was dark when Edward and Brian went out to the driveway. Both men were dressed for battle. Edward wore his old army fatigues and helmet from when he was in Iraq for Gulf War One. Brian wore his paintball gear and a paintball mask. Edward carried his AK-47 on a sling and wore his .45 on his ankle. Brian only carried his AK on a sling. They had agreed to do this wordlessly and as silently as possible before they exited the house. Edward had counted ten of the infected wandering the block, five of which within a short run from the house. While Edward covered him, Brian took bags of food from the back of the suburban and ran into the now-opened garage with bags of food.

About twenty-five feet down the block, an infected person heard the click of the back opening and began stumbling towards the driveway. Ed tapped Brian on the shoulder to encourage him to move faster. Brian grabbed bags of food and ran in and out of the house as fast as he could. He tried to ignore the moans of the zombie as he performed his task.

Edward had made an agreement with Brian beforehand not to shoot unless he absouletly had to. The undead person walking towards the driveway now had a few buddies, a balding middle-aged man with a big beer belly. They both walked with their arms outstretched and their tongues hanging out like dogs ready to eat. Edward raised his AK-47 and pointed it at the zombies. They were less than ten feet away and gaining with each second that went by. Now, it had been a full minute since they went outside. He glanced to the back of the Suburban. Brian had just delivered a load to the garage and was rushing back to the car to grab four other bags. Edward shot a menancing glance to Brian to hurry up and pointed at the zombies that were approaching closer and closer with each second that went by.

Suddenly, Brian felt a surge of energy go through his body. With strength uncanny for the skinny, slender body that he had, he grabbed the last four heavy bags of food from the car and sprinted to the garage and placed the food down. With less than seven feet away from him and the cannibals, Edward slammed the back lid of the Suburban shut and ran into the garage, already closing. He and Brian aimed at the cannibals as the garage door closed, praying that they wouldn't be fast enough to walk in while it shut.

The garage door closed and Brian and Edward were alone again. They had completed the first major mission for their suburban safehouse. Fortunately, the cannibals outside had no clue where those tasty big pieces of flesh disappeared to and walked away from the house to go do something else. Now, Brian and Edward faced another daunting task. Putting away groceries without the help of Mrs. Ray! Tired and not caring about Candice's former rules of grocery storage (Put the bread in the bread basket, sandwich meat in the meat tray, lettuce on the bottom of the fridge, etc), they just put the food anywhere cold and drank the remainder of their whiskey and fell asleep in their own beds.

(Stay tuned for the next chapter. Lots of action and bloodshed on the beach!)


	6. Paradise?

Day 2, 4 PM

From their view on top of an office building on Venice Beach, Anthony and his fellow officers could see the carnage. The famous beach was awash with burning buildings, overturned vehicles, and the walking dead. From time to time, Anthony would hear gunshots, but it had been over four hours since he had last heard one. _Us survivors are getting outnumbered._ Anthony peered into his binoculars and looked at the beach. The waves lapped at the shore. Beyond the shore lay the Pacific Ocean. The sun beat down on the brilliant blue water and cast an unusual, almost golden shine on the surface. Out past the shore laid Catalina Island. He could see the island out in the distance today. Normally, he wouldn't be able to do that. But today, on the most still and horrible, and yet beautiful of days, he could see his refuge.

Anthony looked in his binoculars to the harbor. His fellow SWAT officer Edgar Salas had a rich uncle who kept a sixty foot ferry there. The plan was to fight their way to the docks, raid the office where the keys to the boats were kept, get on the ferry boat and head out to Catalina Island. Anthony did not originally agree to Catalina as being the officer's new home as the island had over a thousand residents, which meant that it would also contain the very things that they were trying to get away from. From where he was, Anthony could see the docks. He didn't see anything out of the ordinary besides an occasional zombie or a seagull flying past his view.

"Anth."

Anthony put down his binoculars and looked over to Edgar.

"What is it?"

"It's almost 4' o clock. We should go now if we want to head out to Catalina before the tide comes in."

Anthony scratched at his waist and looked at the sea for a few seconds.

"You're sure we'll find the key?"

"Yes, I'm absolutely sure we'll find the keys. My uncle does not use that boat, dude." Edgar added with a laugh.

"Alright then. Tell the boys we're due out in an hour."

"Kay.", Edgar replied before turning around and heading down the stairwell into the office building. Anthony followed him before entering a bathroom. Anthony stepped over to the sink and looked at himself in the mirror. His reflection revealed a visibly dirty and tired face. He had not shaved since the day before and already he had a stubble rivaling that of an alcoholic. His SWAT Battle Dress Uniform was shredded in some places and a thin coating of dust, blood, and sweat covered it. He let out a slight moan of disgust and removed his gear belt and took off the BDU and unsheathed a KA-BAR knife that he had holstered at his ankle. He retrieved a canteen full of water from his gear belt and slapped some water on his face and carefully dragged the KA-BAR over his face, feeling the excess hair coming off with the aid of the blade.

"Sir!"

The bathroom door burst open, slamming against the wall behind it. At the doorway was Private First Class Daniel Gomez, part of Anthony's SWAT Unit.

"Fuck!" Anthony felt the warmth of fresh blood run down his face as the blade slid down his cheek. Pain turned to rage as Anthony turned to face the offender. Without even thinking, Anthony began to shout at Daniel.

"Don't you shitheads ever think of knocking! Look what you made me do, asshole! Go get a fucking medic! What are you doing here in the first place!"

Daniel just stood there, watching his captain scream profanities at him with a large blade in his hand, blood dripping down his face and onto the white linoleum floor.

"Don't just stand there, prick! Look at my face! I have a fat fucking scar on it and you're just standing there like a moron watching me bitch you out! I have half a mind to cut your dumb ass too! Go get a medic, now!"

Daniel pulled out a radio and spoke into it, ordering a medic to come upstairs to assist Anthony.

Anthony walked into a bathroom stall and sat down holding his face, applying pressure to the wound. Alongside the pain, rage clouded his mind. _Of all the days to cut myself, it had to be today._

The SWAT medic, Sergeant Nick Blackwell appeared at his stall clutching a first aid kit.

"Jesus, sir, how did that happen?"

There was a long cut on Anthony's cheek running from below his temple stopping at his chin. The immediate course of treatment would be to wash the wound and stitch it up.

"Cut myself shaving." Anthony grunted.

"I'm gonna have to ask you to lie down."

Anthony moaned and walked out of the stall and lay on the floor, closing his eyes and breathing deeply as he did.

Nick emptied the first aid kit and grabbed a bottle of rubbing alcohol. He unscrewed the cap and squirted some onto a cotton pad and applied it to the wound on Nick's face, swabbing it around as he took a roll of stitch wire and a pair of scissors out of his first aid kit.

"Patch it up quick, Sarge. We have to leave in an hour." Anthony ordered.

Nick went to work as he was told, pressing the detached parts of skin as far together as they would go and running the stitch wire under the skin. He did this again and again until the skin was pressed together again. When Nick stood up after his surgery was complete, he already knew what he looked like. As he slipped his BDU on again and slipped on his gear belt, he could feel the stitches rubbing against the still exposed flesh underneath his skin and it bugged him. Walking down the stairs was like torture to the seasoned SWAT officer. _How could I be so stupid? Shaving with a fucking KA-BAR…You dumbass, Anthony. You ugly Frankenstein looking son of a bitch. You deserved to get cut._

In the parking garage, the SWAT officers numbering at more than nineteen stood inside the two SWAT trucks, all gassed up and ready to go. Four men sat on top of each truck with their M4s out. The plan was to fight their way to the marina, shooting at attacking undead from on top and inside the trucks, than disembark all but one of the trucks. They would need a vehicle that advanced for looting Catalina Island's stores. According to Edgar, they would be facing several hundred undead on the way to the docks, and more than a thousand in the resort city of Avalon. The road ahead would be treacherous and more than likely they'd lose a man or two, but in the end Anthony was sure it would be worth it.

After nearly a day in the office building, the two SWAT trucks rolled out of the building at high speed and headed east. Inside the passenger seat of the lead truck, Edgar read the map of the area to the driver, who in turn relayed any messages from them to the rest of the team in case they needed to make any changes. From all of the trucks, M4 fire came raining down on any undead who came too close or were blocking the way. Inside the second truck, Anthony stood by the radio waiting for any messages from Ed.

"Alright, we have a big pileup coming up…ETA 30 seconds. Prepare to reduce speed and follow through a gap."

Anthony held down the send button on the radio and acknowledged his second-in-command's advisement. Everyone else inside his truck took up firing positions from every available position inside it. Most gathered on the roof, figuring it wouldn't be too dangerous considering they would be traveling at a slow speed to account for the gap in the crashed cars that they would be traveling through. At the gap point, the undead surrounding the area noticed the SWAT trucks and ran at them, sensing food inside. The once-quiet intersection suddenly became a war-zone as more than twenty individual assault rifles and submachine guns went off. Blood soaked all over the street where bullets found their marks. Already smashed shop windows collapsed into dust as the projectiles that missed hit them. In less than twenty seconds, twenty individual officers sent more than 340 shots at the undead that attempted to swamp the trucks. This had never happened before.

Finally, the two trucks made it past the pileup and the officers jumped back inside the truck. Four on each truck stayed behind, this time it wasn't the ones who were there from the start. They were all working in shifts for roof duty. Once again, the convoy began to gain speed. In the other truck, Edgar now leaned out the passenger side window peering through his binoculars. He motioned for the driver to turn left at the next street. He spoke into the radio to notify Anthony, also. For fun, Edgar decided to join in shooting the undead who crowded the truck at the next turn, so he unholstered his USP and leaned outside the window once again and after the truck made the turn, shot the closest zombie in the head. Zombies crowded the street up ahead. This would take every bullet in Edgar's clip. Covered by the fire coming from both trucks, Edgar shot every zombie that came close. _Just like target practice_, Ed thought. He ejected his clip, sat back down and retrieved another clip from his belt, slipped it inside the housing and pulled back the slide without even looking at the gun. He took another look at the map and saw that they were less than five minutes from the harbor.

"Keep on going this way, man. You'll know when you'll see it." he told the driver.

Anthony climbed up onto the roof with the other men. When he saw how many there were, he immediately raised his rifle and began shooting. All around them were the cannibals. Ahead of them, at the sides. As far as the eye could see, you could only see zombies. Anthony tapped another officer on the shoulder and told him to go down and tell Edgar to increase speed and do whatever it takes to get to the harbor.

When Edgar got the order, he yelled a whoop of joy and pointed to the nearest crowd of zombies. "Take 'em out." The driver hit the accelerator and with a sickening crunch, took out the entire crowd. The truck went off balance twice, once when they hit the crowd and once when the fourth wheel crushed their bodies. Now, they had a fighting chance. There was a large gap where the bulk of the zombies had been earlier. Even better, they were just outside the harbor. Edgar spoke into the radio. "We're gonna evacuate this truck and proceed to the ferry."

Anthony's truck sped quickly to Edgar's location. He replied to Edgar's call. "10-4, we're gonna be coming up behind you in just a minute. Proceed out and hold your position till we arrive, over."

"10-4." Edgar looked to the driver and spoke. "Alright then. Hope you can handle an SMG." The driver grinned and brought out an MP5, cocking it as he did. Edgar than banged on the metal behind him and yelled for the other men to get out. He jumped out of the truck and ran up to the dock entrance, the rest of the SWAT team behind him. As a team, they moved as fast as they possibly could and shot at anything in their way. Behind them, Anthony's truck was used as a rear guard. The truck was traveling as fast as Edgar's team moved, and the entire way up the dock everyone in that truck was on the roof shooting at the cannibals behind them. Here, they had their first casualty. A young man by the name of Bryson Tengue. He wasn't running fast enough when an Asian girl in an orange tracksuit leapt on his back and tore a chunk out of his neck so big that his head went lopsided. He collapsed like a sack of bricks to the wooden planks beneath him, a crowd of zombies quickly gathering around him to feast on their first kill in a day.

"We have a man down!" Daniel Gomez shouted to Anthony.

"There's nothing you can do about it!" he shouted above the rattle of gunfire. "Just keep shooting!" Anthony replied as he slapped another clip into his M4.

Edgar's team finally reached the ferry. Edgar told all but three members of his team to stay behind and work on getting the moorings off and helping Anthony's team slow down the undead as the rest of his team ran to the harbormaster's office to get the key. Anthony's truck stopped at the ferry, all but four of the SWAT team members exiting the truck. They didn't stop shooting at the zombies, not even when they were exiting the truck. They were the best trained platoon in L.A. County, having beaten Camarillo and Bakersfield's SWAT teams in Room Clearing and Crowd Control four years in a row. Anthony ordered six members of his squad to retrieve all weapons, ammunition and other supplies from the truck and to start loading them into the ferry. He stayed behind with the other officers to slow down the oncoming dead onto their positions. _Where the fuck are, you Ed!_

It took five shots from Ed's USP to open the harbormaster's office door. He and the rest of his team of three dashed into the room, hastily clearing it. Ed, leading with his pistol kicked down the door to the key room and quickly took down two of them, one of them obviously the harbormaster, still dressed in his silly little white captain's hat. He then scoured the walls for the key to his uncle's boat, reading the numbers for each boat. Finally, he found the one he was looking for. Boat Registration 460: Invasion Tours. He snatched the key and hastily stuffed it in a pocket in his BDU. "Let's go!" he called out to his teammates. They ran ahead of him, clearing the path for him. The next minute was like a dream to Edgar.

It seemed like from everywhere around him, a zombie would pop up and take a swipe at him. All he did was just run ahead and try and gain distance from them, then he would shoot them in the head. They would fall so fast, and then another would come up and he would do the same thing, over and over. He could see the ferry from where he was and with every step he took, he got closer to it. Then, a cannibal popped out in front of him. This one was faster than he had encountered previously. He ran towards the ferry, but then it somehow caught up with him. He raised his pistol and pulled the trigger, but nothing happened. He pulled again. Nothing. The cannibal made the first move, raising it's hand and scratched him across the face with dirty, putrid-looking fingernails, then lunging at Edgar and going for his throat. Edgar grabbed the attacker by it's shoulders before it could get any closer and tossed it to the ground. Then he turned on his heel and sprinted to the ferry. He tossed the key over to Anthony, who jumped on the ferry with his teammates. Edgar himself lifted the final piece of rope off the mooring and prepared to jump onto the ferry, but then his attacker from before tackled him to the ground.

Edgar kept his eyes open, kept moving around, and trying to escape the grip of this one. He saw a face. This one used to be pretty. She had straw blonde hair that was stained red with blood. She was wearing a blue dress that had a long rip through the midsection. Her teeth were black with congealed blood. _This is it! I'm gonna die. I'm gonna fuckin' die. _Involuntarily, he beat against his attacker's eye with the butt of his pistol, hoping to disorient or stun it and escape, but already he heard the others running to his pinned position on the dock.

Then, the cannibal on top of him suddenly stopped trying to bite him and instead fell dead, her blonde hair brushing against his eyes. He rolled out from underneath her and looked up. He saw the ferry, stopped less than thirty feet away with Anthony at the back with a PSG-1 in his hands. Edgar didn't even think when he jumped from the dock and began swimming. The water was cold and his breath came in short, shallow gasps. He heard the crack of Anthony's rifle and the splash of the undead jumping in the water to pursue him. He didn't worry about it, though. The cannibals couldn't swim, all they would do is just sink to the bottom and get torn to bits by sharks and other marine life. Edgar finally came within fifteen feet of the vessel, which then cruised carefully over to him. He shivered and bobbed up and down with the waves that were caused by the ferry's approach. Finally, two SWAT members tossed a ladder over the starboard side and called out for him to get on. Edgar summoned what was left of his energy and breast-stroked his way to the ladder.

Ed felt elated as he climbed the final three rungs of the ladder and staggered his way onto a chair on deck, breathing deeply, thirsty, tired, mildly sunburned and wanting nothing but a cool glass of water and a cigarette.

Nearly everyone on board swamped Edgar to congratulate him on his daring escape from the docks.

"Damn dude, that was some James Bond status shit there."

"Nice shooting."

"I couldn't have done it better myself."

Anthony stepped over to the hero's welcome that the SWAT members were giving Ed and told them to all to leave him alone. He laid the PSG-1 to the side and sat down next to Ed, handing him his canteen and his last Marlboro.

"Thanks for saving me back there." said Ed as he drank greedily from the canteen, water running down his BDU as he did.

"No problem." Anthony replied as he lit Ed's cigarette for him.

"I thought you said we could've fit the truck on here." Anthony said blankly. The ferry was now proceeding to Catalina at more than 30 knots. Occasionally Anthony would be splashed by a burst of salt water from the effects of the boat hitting a breaking wave. The salt would splash into his still-open wound from earlier today, making him cringe with the pain.

"I didn't know Marina Del Ray was going to be an undead Woodstock.", Ed replied. He passed the Marlboro over to Anthony.

"At least we only had one casualty.", Anthony said between puffs at the cigarette.

"Not quite."

Anthony felt his heart skip a beat. Somehow, he knew what was coming.

"She scratched me, Anth." Ed looked at Anthony, pointing to the long cuts on his face from his attacker on the docks.

"Ed, no one's seen anyone get infected from a scratch. Don't think so down, man!", Anthony pleaded.

"I'd prefer not to take the chance."

Anthony handed the cigarette back to Ed, who took a long drag of it before he continued.

"Before the radio went down, I heard of people not only getting the virus from being bitten, but from being scratched, spit on..anything involving direct contact with them. From what I've seen, it's fatal. I'll die, I'll come back and I'll be a danger to everyone."

"But Ed, you can't just kill yourself because you heard you'll become a zombie if you get scratched. Information is sketchy these days anyway."

"It'll take less bullets this way."

"Okay, now you're acting like a preschooler. How about this?" Anthony's voice became very firm, as if he was talking to a child.

"We'll put you down in the galley. We'll lock you in the liquor room. I'll be there with you. If what you're saying is true, and you do turn, I'll kill you. If it isn't, and you don't turn, then you're coming with us."

"Fine then. But bring two of you. The one who got me was faster, stronger than the others."

"Okay then." Anthony patted his friend on the head, and then helped him up to go downstairs to the galley. He brought two of his best marksman with him. In three hours time, the passengers of Invasion Tours would know if they had found their paradise, or just another extension of their Hell on Earth.

(If you haven't noticed yet, i'm going to be jumping around in time a bit for this story. Next chapter will be set during Day 1, starring our heroes from the first chapter. Stay tuned.)


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